Minetta Review Fall 2016 by Minetta Review

F A L 2016L

MINETTA REVIEW FALL 2016

Cover featuring art by Amy Guidry. Cover designed by Stephanie Wang, Felix Chan, and Chandler Wald. Minetta Review logo created by Carol Ourivio.

CONTENTS 6

Minetta Statement

Annesha Sengupta Emma Thomas

POETRY 9

LITTLE CREEK DEEP DRINK

Scott Hightower

DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T MIND THE MAN

Cassandra Kessler

HOMUNCULUS

Kurt Luchs

GOD THE AMERICAN

Amelia Wood

IS THERE A LANGUAGE FOR OUR MINISCULE LOSSES

James Kelly Quigley

EMPTY NEST SYNDROME

Ada Chen

KATIA DREAMS OF SPACE-SCRAPERS

Kaylin Kaupish

DUST

Ada Chen

NOTES FROM 274 JOHNSON AVE

Laura Casado

TEEN DREAM

Lia Hagen

ODE TO THE DRUG HOUSE DOWN THE GRAVEL ROAD OFF THE TWO-LANE HIGHWAY #60

Darren C. Demaree

DILLI

Saronik Bosu

PROSE 17

SINGER

Jared Gentile

NOT HER

Kaylin Kaupish

PROPOSALS FOR NEW Trevor Abes SOCIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENTS 5

SELF-MEDICATION

Trevor Abes

HEART-ATTACK PREVENTION

Trevor Abes

OF DAUGHTERS AND CRONKITE

Sharisse Naomi Zeroonian

ART 11

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

THOUGHTS

Dimithry Victor

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PEN PORTRAIT

Dimithry Victor

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

RAGE & FASCINATION

Diego Suarez

HOCKNEYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S KNEE

Diego Suarez

SAY ZON

Diego Suarez

OSCILLATING REACTIONS

Nicolas Strappini

PANTHALASSA

Cary Webb

MISSING PIECES (1)

Carin Leong

SKYMAN

Dune Alford

MISSING PIECES (2)

Carin Leong

SKYMAN

Dune Alford

MISSING PIECES (3)

Carin Leong 6

SKYMAN

Dune Alford

MISSING PIECES (4)

Carin Leong

GENETICS

Carin Leong

SAINTS

Andy Wang

YELLOW

Juliette Hayt

FEMALE ROMAN BREASTPLATE

Carla Posada

ESSENCE OF AUTUMN

Katarina Cirillo

SHADOWS ON THE WALL

Isabella Kapczynski

CITY LOVERS

Ariel Schleicher

MOTHER, WHO AM I?

Ariel Schleicher

LIBERATED

Ariel Schleicher

LADY WITH A FAN

Eric Avila

I FEEL COLORED STILL

Eric Avila

VICTORY

Eric Avila

SLUMBER

Eric Avila

EXHAUSTEDSLUTNOTES

Diego Suarez

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

EYE DROP

Dimithry Victor

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

PIETER BRUEGEL: THE PROVERBS

Allen Forrest

Contributor Notes

Editorial Board & Special Thanks

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS

We bring the Fall 2016 issue into existence at a time when it feels as though everything is falling apart. Hate has found new footholds in the world, and although many of the problems we face today have always been present, racist, sexist, and homophobic sentiment has been legitimized to a frightening degree. We do not know what the future will hold. Lately, we have been considering Minettaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place in this new world. We are a college-run magazine led by a constellation of diverse and beautiful bodies. At times, we are both confused and terrified, and often we do not know what to do. In the past several weeks, we (as individuals and as a collective) have worried about the reach of our relatively small magazine. We have a message of love to spread, but can we spread it far enough? How will we be heard through the noise? We know this question resonates with people of all ages, particularly our fellow students. It is a question to which we do not have an answer. But we cannot understate the importance of making noise and making art. While we hope that something we create will find wings, none of us can risk adding to the silence. We recognize that the creation of art in all forms and on all stages is necessary not only as an act of love and resistance, but also as a way to heal our minds and bodies so that we can continue to love and resist. We have worked hard this year to expand our Minetta community, and bring poetry, prose, and art to more people than ever before. In October, we took part for the second time in the Above & Below Reading Series at the Jefferson Market Public Library. Among our many talented readers were Minetta graduates, and we are thrilled to see them succeed as writers and as artists. We are deeply appreciative of Scott Hightower, without whom this series, and Minettaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s part in it, 8

would never have taken place. We are also thrilled to announce that Scott has contributed a poem to this issue of Minetta: “Little Creek Deep Drink” beautifully describes the deep-rooted history of the Minetta Review’s namesake, the now-vanished Minetta Creek. We were also excited to take part in the first NYC New Voices Reading in conjunction with Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, NYU’s GLS Poetry Club, and De Ambiente. We are particularly thankful to Eugenia Cavazos for securing Poet’s House as the venue and for her organizational fervor. It was a magical night, and we hope to see many more. As always, we are infinitely grateful to our tireless staff, who have worked hard through what has at times been a truly trying semester. We would also like to thank Sarah McGough, our advisor, the Student Activities Board at NYU, Frank Collerius and Corinne Neary at the Jefferson Market Public Library, and everyone who has strived to will our readings and our magazine into existence. We hope you are as excited about this issue as we are. With Love, Annesha Sengupta Emma Thomas Editors-in-Chief Minetta Review Fall 2016

LITTLE CREEK DEEP DRINK Scott Hightower

for Bonnie Jean Millican

Like when people cease to worship a minor god: a Manhattan draw has disappeared beneath a city; lost in all but legend and name. The Indians called it Manette—Devil’s Water. And then, Dutch settlers saw muskrats in the meadow beside it. And called it Bestevaer’s Killetje— Grandfather’s Little Creek. Manette, Minnetje: ... as opposed to a larger course just North. At his place, before it reached its mouth at the Hudson, Aaron Burr bled it out into a pond. Some still dream of the little drain winding its erratic way past two centuries and near notable downtown sites. The Jefferson Market Public Library fills a site just west. Washington Square Park, the scrappy corner urban garden that once was the Golden Swan Cafe (Thomas Wallace’s Irish Hell Hole saloon), Caffe Reggio and the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal, the diagonal Minetta Lane, other streets and Village buildings and businesses are now on its spoor. 11

The Jefferson Market Library, once a busy courthouse with stately Gothic clock tower, firewatcher’s balcony, bell, and adjoining keep, is still an attraction here. When I first came to the city, its community prison for women was notable. Like reduced Rapunzels with too much time on their hands, the inmates--not so much in need of the sure hooves of a fleet steed as pens or a book of matches— would call from the high windows: “Toilet paper! A magazine, a bar of soap!” Their voices would kite, “We’ll show you our ducts in a row!” They would lower “jail-house elevators,” cigarette boxes jury-rigged with string to trawl up any lucky pedestrian swag. The prison eventually came down. A Pierian garden now grows in its place, commemorates those days. On the first floor of the library, in the Willa Cather Community Room, writers give public readings of their work.

Written for the occasion of the celebration of the Minetta Review, April 14, 2016 at the Jefferson Market Public Library, NYC. 12

DON’T MIND THE MAN Cassandra Kessler

No use, no use, now, begging recognize. Nothing to do with such a beautiful stoop but steal it. Room for the kids From the house Behind the gate To pass, to pass In suits on skateboards To their million dollar other home. Don’t mind the man With just a wheeled cage of brass. Holds eight prescriptions And a bottling factory. Pills for the Heart The colon, cancer, belly, blood & two for the brain The pain – Self Medicated And of another color. All the bottles, bottles, bottles Recycled from parties behind the gate Never dared to touch. Half full drinks flame and foam & rock inside my metal home Make nickels for me by morning. 14

HOMUNCULUS Kurt Luchs

Oracle or pincushion, which did they intend who fashioned him from a single reed and a whitening lock of human hair? The mouth a vicious daub of red, partially healed and not meant for speech. The ears still green; buds, perhaps, opening for a syllable yet to be named, a hissing song. Whatever it is the tiny fists have closed on, they arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t letting go. The feet mere stubs fit not even for planting. At his side the painted blade hangs blue and ready. What color the eyes, rolled inward forever?

SINGER Jared Gentile

The lyric wasn’t at the bottom of the pill bottle. It wasn’t in his cigarette, and it wasn’t in those other pills he’d taken either. He started looking around for it on his hands and knees among the garbage and the stains of the backstage lounge but he couldn’t find it, couldn’t remember where he’d left it, couldn’t even remember if he’d ever had it in the first place. He asked his cronies for some help as they tossed around a bag of grass like a couple of real lawnmowers, but they just said, “Write a song about lonely people.” He said, “I’ve already written a million songs about lonely people,” and then he went on scouring through the duffel bags and equipment while they shrugged and sagged. Later he was with his girlfriends, but they couldn’t remember where he’d put it either. They smiled and laughed amongst each other and then they went to join the crowd. When he had to go onstage because they were already an hour late, he flopped all about on one leg while chugging a bottle of liquor and then he smashed it onto a speaker and went to the edge and almost fell into the crowd. He 19

tarted half-stepping in a circle like a chicken with its head cut off, spinning from the drumbeat, and finally he grabbed the microphone and screamed as loud as he could. The fans were going absolutely wild and one of them rode on top of the wave of fingers to the stage and grabbed him in an embrace. “What do I sing?” he asked. “Ahhhhh!” the fan yelled into his ear before being pulled away by the security. He kept walking irregularly about the stage while flipping his hair to one side and then the other, pulling up his pants, and then falling over. He ran in a pinwheel on the ground and wrapped himself up in the microphone cord and screamed and bit his tongue so hard that blood spiked out of his mouth into the crowd and they cheered and opened their mouths. Then he got up and bowed and fell down and crawled into the fetal position and tried to rock himself awake and the fans went completely insane and threw beer bottles onto the stage and the stage was filled with smoke from the smoke machines and the fans were smoking and he lifted his head and couldn’t remember where he was in the smoke and crawled on all fours to the edge and fell in and the sea of fingers threw him back onstage and he found the microphone and screamed. His band mates were playing so loudly that the speakers could barely handle it and he almost threw up but instead he just moaned and moaned and moaned. He stretched out his hands but he couldn’t find the lyric anywhere and he cut his fingers on broken glass and curled up into a ball again. The smoke didn’t stop coming and he was sure one of the speakers had caught on fire but the guitar players were still playing loudly and they walked over to him and played down into his face and kicked him and he scrambled to his feet and staggered about for air but there was only smoke and he tried to run backstage but the security shoved him back on and he was searching for the perfect way out when he accidentally kicked the microphone and he grabbed it and started singing. “When will the torture end? When will my teeth lose their grip on this dirty rag? When am I to blink at the sun? Oh it’s six feet too late. Oh it’s all been done, so throw me directly in the sun, throw me directly in the sun, yes throw me directly in the su-u-u-un.”

Later he was with his boyfriends, who had been at the show, and he asked them if they thought he had done a good job. They just nodded and yawned, and nuzzled their bearded faces into his soft skin. Lying there in bed wide-awake, his eyes couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but adjust to the dark.

GOD THE AMERICAN Amelia Wood

1. His Glorious Magical Massacre Part I Here’s what he told me, that crazy motherfucker in the park, I didn’t even ask: In the winter of ‘86 some guys break into his house, murder his wife and kids. So, he ties them up in his front yard, beats them with a pipe, cuts their heads off with a steak knife. Jesus, think about how he must have had to saw at it. He gets locked up, obviously. For twenty years. Now he’s here. I didn’t need to know that. But I’m kind of glad I do. Now I think about it when I wait in lines, at work, when there’s nothing to do, before I sleep, in the shower, anytime my mind is idle it goes back to that image. The blood, I wish I could have seen it, I really do.

2. Taxi Ride If there is a god, he’s probably the kind everyone says he is. The kind that owns like fifty guns and dreams of shooting up convenience stores. Instead, he stands in the doorway of a Wal-Mart in Texas every Saturday, a white-trash vigilante, and waits for something to happen. He thinks vengeance and justice are the same thing. Knows his flag is the only flag. But he’s never been outside of Texas. If there is a god, I hope he has a drug problem. Was a Deadhead in the ‘70s. Plays poker every Friday night. Curses just as much as I do. He smokes too. Marlboro Reds. A pack a day. His voice sounds like feet shuffling over the crumbling wet pavement. And when the bum on the street corner shouts after him, “Fuck you! I just want a dime,” he responds, “I don’t owe you shit.” Maybe he hates his job and hasn’t spoken to his father in over five years. Sometimes I think he’s there in the room with me when I eat dinner at the restaurant on Canal Street with my father, who’s already had two martinis, and will likely have another. We’re singing Friend of the Devil as loud as we can (the other customers and all the waiters hate us). God is laughing and maybe he’s brought Jerry Garcia along to witness this shit show. “I’m sorry,” says my father, later on in the street. I tell him, I know, and I love him. He passes out in the taxi on the way home. 23

3. His Glorious Magical Massacre Part II The other day I watched some lady climb down into the train track. She was drunk, or high, or insane. I don’t know. Someone pulled her out, and I was relieved, I promise, I didn’t want to see her die, but I imagined the train coming. The screeching of electrified metal, white noise, needle-piercing screaming through the blackness the slowing of machinery, a body wrecked and more than dead. I couldn’t look away. In the park, he held the birds in his arms. They stood on top of his head and branched out of his shoulders. A hundred little plumed appendages sprouting from his gray T-shirt. “Do you have violent fantasies?” he said. Man, who the fuck you think I am. I am human. Violent, That’s something like a synonym. It helps me see the dull light in the middle of all this night.

IS THERE A LANGUAGE FOR OUR MINUSCULE LOSSES James Kelly Quigley

at the hem of the casket I want to scrape his deadman snot with a scalpel I cup his fingers and remember the liquid nitrogen his human signature shoved into petal blue his lips sucked in brittle hibiscus his hair crimped like a good Irish boy I want to lift his eyelids see the disco void

at the hem of the casket my knees never get sore I could sleep here my skin on his bloodrust my face full of bones our serial numbers align my jaw is his jaw he placed it there thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enough methadone for us both to get some rest but the cotton smells like bleach he built pyramids somewhere he must have

NOT HER Kaylin Kaupish

I sit in my living room and wait for two minutes. My legs are curled up on the leather couch and it chills my skin. I stare at the seemingly innocuous item on my coffee table. I take another sip of the water I chugged a few minutes ago. I think about my mother. She wanted to become a movie director. She wanted to be the next Woody Allen. She wanted to go to Greece. She wanted to see the bleach-white houses along the cliffs. She graduated from a university in Virginia with a Bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in Theatre. She met a boy at that college and they fell in love. She moved to Brooklyn, and when the boy asked if he could come with her, she said yes. She was there only a year before she sat in the same position I am in. Perhaps she also curled her legs up on the couch. Maybe it felt cold against her skin as well. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know. She was 24 when she got pregnant. I wonder if she had second 29

thoughts. If she thought about the white houses and how she wanted to live there. If she thought about the coolness of the camera’s viewfinder against her eye. If she thought about going to the clinic. If a protestor had shoved a sign in her face and she turned around. Was she scarred enough to keep me or brave enough to keep me? I don’t know. I graduated from the same university in Virginia with a Bachelor’s degree in English. I met a boy at that college and we fell in love. I moved to Brooklyn, and when the boy asked if he could go with me, I said yes. I am 24 and I have never wanted kids. I have three younger siblings. I helped my mother when she was a nanny. I volunteered at a day care and I had baby dolls as a child. I even pretended to breastfeed my doll once. But I never wanted kids. When they asked the kids in my class what they wanted to be when they grew up, I always changed my answer. Archeologist. Writer. Actress. Dancer. Movie Director. I never realized when the other girls said their answers, they meant Mother. So in the two minutes I sit in my living room, I think about how I never want kids. I think about the boy my mother moved to Brooklyn with. I think about how he became my father. I think about the boy I am in Brooklyn with. I think about my mother being brave. I think about the white houses on the cliffs. I think about Woody Allen. The timer on my phone goes off and I reach for the pregnancy stick that is sitting on my coffee table. I think about how I am like my mother. I think about how I need to be brave enough to not be her.

EMPTY NEST SYNDROME Ada Chen

The belly of the robin, in the maple rooted front lawn of my parents’ new house, is red. At the window, my mother peels an orange for my father as he washes the dishes after dinner and in the blushing morning, my father wakes early to pack my mother’s lunch for the day. I don’t call home very often, but when I think of them, it is at the end of the summer where I find my father watering the garden, and in the front yard at dusk, my mother scoops into her hands, the blue shells of a robin’s egg.

KATIA DREAMS OF SPACE-SCRAPERS Kaylin Kaupish

The girl next to me speaks softly timidly her words unsure As she asks if she can practice her English on me the first American she has ever met she recites like a perfect student The words lilting and accented with strange syllables when she Speaks to her stoic parents her voice becomes its natural state Flows from her tongue and lips like a reluctant diver who hesitates Before the jump but then feels unimaginable euphoria as she falls When I tell her I live in New York City her hand Flies to her heart and she sighs simply says Dream Her breath smells of butter and fats a mouth That has never tasted the bitterness of cigarettes The smell of someone who is well fed and warm She takes my right hand and inspects for a ring She tells me she is an atheist and has told no one She tells me she wants to go to New York to see The space-scrapers I do not correct her

Diego Suarez

Rage & Fascination collage

Hockneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Knee collage

Say Zon

collage

Nicolas Strappini

Oscillation Reactions etching and aquatint

Cary Webb

Panthalassa

digitally manipulated ink and acrylic

Carin Leong

Missing Pieces (1) photography

Dune Alford

SkyMan

photography

Missing Pieces (2) photography

SkyMan

photography

Missing Pieces (3) photography

SkyMan

photography

Missing Pieces (4) photography

Carin Leong

Genetics

ink on paper

Andy Wang

Saints

acrylic

Juliette Hayt

Yellow

marker and oil paint on canvas

Carla Posada

Female Roman Breastplate EVA foam

Katarina Cirillo

Essence of Autumn photography

Isabella Kapczynski

Shadows on the Wall oil paint

Ariel Schleider City Lovers graphite on clayboard

Mother, Who Am I? oil on canvas paper

Liberated graphite and colored pencil on newsprint

Eric Avila Lady with a Fan charcoal, acrylic, chalk

I feel colored still... page from I AM ERIC AVILA paintmarker, ink, InDesign

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THIS IS PAGE 11

always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always always

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colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored. colored.

Victory lithography print

Slumber pen, paintmarker, acrylic, charcoal on paper

DUST Ada Chen

You havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been home in almost seven days. We have been up all night and this is the first time youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever pulled open the blinds of your window, it is almost seven AM We are dust particles in the sunlight that drips into your pomegranate room, revolving and drifting around one another. We are your clothes, laundered, picked up, folded and tucked neatly away. I made your bed while you were in the shower and as I breathe in the steam rising from your skin, I am there when you touch me, but in the light, you are here and here and here (and here)

Diego Suarez exhaustedSlutNotes collage

PROPOSALS FOR NEW SOCIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENTS Trevor Abes

“Public Space Sociability Index”—Esther Schlosser. Esther Schlosser is 86 and unafraid of leopard print in any form. She volunteers as a customer service representative at a hospital gift shop for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. Her job entails talking with people, pointing them toward the right aisle, and helping pick out the occasional bouquet, toy, or greeting card. While on the sales floor, Esther clicks a handheld counter each time she gets to the point of introducing herself to someone. On each subsequent shift, she attempts to up the previous’ total by at least one. On the day Esther runs out of time to make her count, she records the measurement—in days over people she’s made the acquaintance of—on a chart in a report she presents to the store manager with an invoice for the extra service. The work is the first in her series of public space sociability index scores. 69

SELF-MEDICATION Trevor Abes

Once a week in the early morning, Doris rolls in on her motorized wheelchair to browse the store’s knick knack tables. She is in her 70s, thin and pale in all black, a mole on her right cheek an effortless accessory. The pain clinic upstairs has been treating her chronic molar and lower back pain, but on appointment days she has to take weaker meds, her regular stuff being too strong for her to travel. They keep the pangs manageable without quite freeing her mind from having to occupy itself with them. To make up for the lack of relief, Doris starts planning and executing knick knack robberies on her visits. She doesn’t eat much doped up or in pain, so her concern, at least within the confines of our store, is food. She flips through our cheeky grocery lists for the added motivation, and lip balms in the form of various treats such as burgers and macarons to entice her appetite. There’s also a new item: pig-shaped, scratch-and-sniff, 70

bacon-scented erasers, three to a package. Though she would have preferred there to be an odor through the plastic for her to evaluate, she isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t picky about anything that could help. She finds peace in lining up the side of her wheelchair with the plastic containers that puzzle together to form the display. Her heart rate spikes from observing other people in the store for the opportunity to wedge the items between thigh and chair cushion, a kerchief at the ready for cover. Once rolling out, Doris is high enough to be present at her appointment and order something at the Second Cup next door while she waits for her accessible bus ride home.

HEART-ATTACK PREVENTION Trevor Abes

To get the most out of his underpaying job on a bookstore sales floor, Trevor starts to treat said sales floor as an ethical gymnasium designed to make him a better adult. Customers take on the additional role of sparring partners, the bad days they happen to be having no longer to be fended off or avoided— in the interest of maintaining his emotional stability throughout the day—but experienced and analyzed in full to bulk up his capacity for kindness toward unreasonable behavior. Early on during his 7:30 a.m. shift, Rosie Lorenz, a retired cupcake quality control officer, looks like she could use a hand with a stack of six books at her hip. Trevor steps over and offers to store them behind cash until she’s done browsing, but she refuses, saying she’s done anyway. Somewhere in the half turn from the New and Hot Releases table to 73

the cash desk, Rosie drops her phone. Trevor squats and picks it up when, without a chance to think, she pulls him around by the shoulder and grabs the phone from his hand, unable to see that he was saving her the effort and has no desire to steal in plain sight in his place of employment. Trevorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exercise regimen calls for not getting flustered. His personal space, though invaded, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exempt him from ruminating through the inner-workings of her outburst, from giving himself a second to imagine all the disappointments, triumphs, and at the time forgettable exchanges that led to Rosie reacting so strongly at strangers holding her things. Maybe she grew up in a war-torn country where being willing to give up whatever you had on you in exchange for your freedom was a regular occurrence. Maybe her older brother buried her favorite doll in the backyard and forgot about the whole thing, as a child might, until a rainstorm three weeks after revealed a tiny hand reaching up from among the budding petunias. Trevor is trying to do what he wants others to do for him when he momentarily loses it. Rosie is both a person and a subject of study over which he asserts an academic gaze. He is vying to allow for her knowing where she is coming from before he falls into a familiar pattern of defining himself in opposition to the people he dislikes. Trevor finds a use for his rather embarrassing experiences in similar situations by looking at Rosie through a filter made entirely from them. Like when he yelled at those teenagers to stop yelling about successfully completing the flip the water bottle onto its cap trick because they were in the bathroom and he had a headache.

Rosie says, “That’s mine,” and Trevor responds, “Of course,” resuming their walk to cash and unhurriedly ringing her books through, feeling he’d be able to say hello to her if she walked in again without it being too weird.

NOTE FROM 274 JOHNSON AVE Laura Casado

Gramma I fell in love with a dj at 2:06 am He called to me through smoke and sweat and swimming pools Breathing echoes into the air that vibrated my chest Foreign beats pulsating my spine uh1anduh2and3and4eeanduh Swirl of chaos pounding from fingertips to brain uh1and2eeanduh3and4 He swept my senses and rewrote their meter Body arching against his sonic flow, aching slowly still as it ebbed away 1eeanduhrestrest4 restrestrest4 And as the sky melted from ink to ashes, light easing softly into our edge of the world I realized that my body, back to normal, had before always been numb

TEEN DREAM Lia Hagen

during my first-ever make-out sesh, our slurping tongues sounded like stirring macaroni a damp octopus dragging its suckers across a linoleum floor. we were fourteen in a friend’s basement. he palmed my breast pushed the fat of it around thumb occasionally rubbed over my nipple turned my body to hummingbird. his dick like a second-spine standing at attention. I didn’t know that teen boys get a hard-on when the wind blows right, so he made me feel special. he was the kind of guy who always texted back. asked permission before pressing sweaty palms to skin. after lord of the rings ended our friends stopped pretending they couldn’t hear us. I looked down, saw his black socks with fuzzy lint balls.

my dad wore those same socks back before I knew where his dick had been. my whole body turned to stillness. tried not to become time-traveler tugged back to abuse I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember. tried not to be historian confusing friendship in the trenches with the battlefield. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to wear what my dad did out the house that morning. wanted to be fourteen. swapping strawberry flavored gum, enough spit sounds to drown out the movie. he kissed me goodbye. I used less tongue. my skin still remembered.

ODE TO THE CORNER OF THE DRUG HOUSE DOWN THE GRAVEL ROAD OFF THE TWO-LANE HIGHWAY #60 Darren C. Demaree

The eye of the haven from the outside, looks like a slit, an uneager wound in a terrible house & from the back of this car I can feel no prelude, I can see no future.That corner never knew me sober. I feel loss

will find me once this shit wears off & then what will I get to look out of? I used to see all of Ohio through that damage. I could smell the water from the retention pond turning against me.

OF DAUGHTERS AND CRONKITE Sharisse Naomi Zeroonian

Before you (justifiably) scream at me, and tell me everything I did wrong, I wanna tell you a little bit about my psyche, where a blackand-white movie constantly plays, showing oceans and oil companies and dinners that took all day to make, and little feet not being able to touch the floor. When my feet got bigger, your grandmother drove me to the airport to go to boarding school in another time zone, to learn what she could not teach me. She said, “Son, when you come back, you’ll be able to talk like the Queen, watch Cronkite without dubs, and respect me.” She didn’t even wave to me as she left; she never, ever waved to me when she left. I married your mother, and when the ultrasound told me about you, I was scared to death. Boys, I can take, but girls are different; girls act 83

like they love you, and then they send you halfway across the planet to learn to talk like the Queen, watch Cronkite without dubs and respect them, and don’t even wave when they leave. They eat but they don’t work. They can inhale, but they can’t exhale. They make you feel like the part in your hair is wrong somehow. They make you wish you were dead. So as I held you and held you and held you and the rain was pattering and babies were crying and women in blue scrubs were talking about dying, it was all unfolding in my brain, so I injected morphine into what I couldn’t change, and made a promise. It would have been easier if you hadn’t been so “always”. Always fighting. Always needing something right when I needed something. Always getting into things and then trying to get out of them. Always learning, listening. Always blowing my mind. Always running; falling down the stairs like a lost penny. Always rapid-fire, electric, intelligent. Always loud and hungry, like an alarm clock that doesn’t stop screaming until you smack it. Did you know the Dow fell today? I didn’t have any money in there, because as you know from experience, I’m not the kind of man to invest in things that I know are worthy. I wish you could have taken that last bit and written it yourself.

DILLI

Saronik Bosu

The city ends in strangeness. The road coils around the flag that tries to lick the stratosphere, gives up bemused The grey river purrs, and howls, and curls up into stories the rainbow and silver being river no more. In the fog between thought and thought, the city comes apart sighingly; into time and time and time and time tied up like wires: live, spitting fire Agha says: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s December and my city sleeps in strangeness.

CONTRIBUTOR NOTES TREVOR ABES is an artist with a penchant for conceptual writing and photography. His work has appeared in Torontoist, untethered, (parenthetical) and the Hart House Review, among others. He is currently theatre critic at The Theatre Reader. Say hello on Twitter and IG @TrevorAbes. DUNE ALFORD was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she attended an arts high school, New Mexico School for the Arts, while also studying dance at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. She fell in love with drawing and painting, but after attending the University of New Mexico, she was drawn to the art of photography. Now in her junior year, Dune feels inspired to see how far she can take photography in order to create work that tells her personal truth. ERIC AVILA (b. 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist-designer that is interested in exploring identity politics through his work. He received his BFA in Graphic Design from Purchase College, SUNY. He has been a member of Cre8tive YouTH*ink since 2012 and is versed in painting, drawing, lithography, typography, and print design. You can view more of his work at www.ericaviladesign.com. SARONIK BOSU is a doctoral student at the Department of English, NYU. This is only the second time his poetry has been published. His first can be found at the Contemporary Literary Review India. As @ saronikos on Instagram, he takes pictures of things. LAURA CASADO is a writer from California studying Journalism, French, and Spanish at NYU. She writes and edits for The Tab, likes going on road trips, and loves listening to peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories. ADA CHEN is an undergraduate senior studying English at NYU. 89

She lives in New York City and works as an editor for the Brooklyn Poets Society. She is currently working on a poetic ethnography project and is probably studying you. DARREN C. DEMAREE is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Many Full Hands Applauding Inelegantly (2016, 8th House Publishing). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. ALLEN FORREST was born in Canada and bred in the U.S. and has worked in many mediums: computer graphics, theater, digital music, film, video, drawing and painting. Allen studied acting in the Columbia Pictures Talent Program in Los Angeles and digital media in art and design at Bellevue College (receiving degrees in Web Multimedia Authoring and Digital Video Production.) He currently works in the Vancouver, Canada, as a graphic artist and painter. He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University’s Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation’s permanent art collection. Forrest’s expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh, creating emotion on canvas. JARED GENTILE is a Freshman in Film & TV from Santa Monica, California. He is a big fan of words. LIA HAGEN is a 19 year old queer creative from the cosmopolitan metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska. She is a long time poet and President of SLAM! At NYU. She also writes fiction and newfangled content for the interwebs. Other interests include zine-making, photography, and taking selfies she’ll never post. JULIETTE HAYT is a BFA student at NYU Steinhardt with a concentration in painting, and a minor in creative writing. Her 90

body of work is a visual diary, drawing inspiration from my physical diary which she uses to keep record of my every day life. Her subject matter touches upon anxiety, chaos, feminism, and more specifically what it means and feels like to be looked at, as a woman. Color is a key component to the way she sees the world. She often associates memories, feelings and people with specific colors. This is essential to how she creates her paintings. She is specifically fascinated with the color yellow, because she imagines it to be a color that represents an artificial happiness that perhaps is unattainable. Through the use of yellow in her work, she explores how this color can evoke emotion for herself and the viewer. AMY GUIDRY is an artist currently residing in Lafayette, Louisiana. She comes from a family of artists including the late painter Eleanor Norcross. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide. Her paintings are present in public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe. SCOTT HIGHTOWER is the author of four books of poetry in the U.S. and Hontanares, a bi-lingual collection (Spanish-English) published by Devenir, Madrid. Tartessos, his second bilingual, is forthcoming this spring from Devenir. Hightowerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s awards include the 2004 Hayden Carruth Award and a Barnstone Translation Prize. When not teaching at New York Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, he sojourns in Spain. ISABELLA LEOKADIA KAPCZYNSKI is a painter living in New York City. A senior at NYU, she is majoring in Studio Art and minoring in English Literature. Inspired by the everyday, her artworks reflect a Proustian nostalgia and an attachment to simple beauty. Fascinated by light and shadow, she aims to capture fleeting moments by embracing the immediacy of the senses and the environments that surround us. Shadows on the Wall is part of a developing series of works meant to be displayed in front of a window rather than a wall, so that natural light can filter through it, illuminating the paint 91

and highlighting every detail. Isabella’s works are mainly abstract, allowing for an ambiguity that invites the viewer to make their own assumptions and connections to the painting. KAYLIN KAUPISH is from Richmond, Virginia and attended Virginia Commonwealth University, where she worked as executive editor for the literary journal Amendment. She has been published in Quail Bell Magazine and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. CASSANDRA KESSLER is an East Village native studying literature and music at the University of Southern California. She is a Junior Narrative Studies major and writes both verse and prose. Being transplanted from New York City first to Paris, France and now to Los Angeles, California, she takes inspiration from the context and culture of her location, and from the lives and experiences she encounters. CARIN LEONG was born in Singapore and currently lives in New York as an Undergraduate Film and TV student at Tisch. She spends her time thinking about the meaning of life, her place in the world, and whether putting a slice of lemon in her water actually makes a difference. KURT LUCHS founded the literary humor site TheBigJewel.com in 2002 in addition to writing poetry. He has written humor for the New Yorker, The Onion, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television (Politically Incorrect and The Late Late Show) and radio (American Comedy Network). He has poems forthcoming in Former People Journal and Into the Void, among others, and a humor collection due in 2017 from Sagging Meniscus Press called It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny). ARIEL SCHLEICHER is not one to enjoy describing herself for every reflection of her life surfaces varying memories, thereby casting and dressing her persona in particular shrouds. Her dogged-after goal is to grasp the inter-contextualities of the self-aware, complex 92

being; her accomplishment will be continuous completion of works as translation of these insights to the world through any visual or written medium of conveyance, for sharing self-sought-out knowledge is the most selfless action of any person. NICOLAS STAPPINI looks at the aesthetic potential of scientific processes. He graduated with a first class bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Fine Art in 2015 at Bath Spa University and is currently a postgraduate student studying Art and Science at Central Saint Martins, London. He donated work to be shown in the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He has work shown in an upcoming asemic writing exhibition in Italy. He has previously worked with Gustave Metzger, Robert Whitman and Andy Goldsworthy. DIEGO SUAREZ is a multidisciplinary artist with a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Cornish College of the Arts. His work explores time, fragmentation, displacement, and otherness through the chaotic nature of collage. He lives and works in Seattle, WA. JAMES KELLY QUIGLEY is a senior at New York University studying Comparative Literature and Creative Writing. He was born and raised in New York. CARLA POSADA was born and raised in PerĂş. Her love for the theatre led her to NYC. She studies at NYU as an aspiring set designer and props master, making art in any and every way that she can. DIMITHRY VICTOR is a 16-year-old emerging artist based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. He always believed great art made people think, feel emotions, and inspired others. He hopes to achieve all three of these things through art and much more. Currently, his art focuses on drawings made with charcoal, pen, pencil and watercolor paintings. ANDY WANG is currently a first year undergraduate student 93

majoring in the Studio Art program of NYU Steinhardt. As an art student in NYU, Andy firmly believes in the bond between art and politics. When creating art, he often strives for the goal of using art to positively influence decision-making and increase awareness on significant regional/ global issues. Since coming to NYU, he has also been experimenting with a variety of materials and artistic concepts. In the upcoming academic years, Andy plans to dive more deeply into the fields of digital art and filmmaking. CARY WEBB is a Canadian born, Australian Artist, Designer, Poet and Writer. He attended the National Art School in Sydney Australia, and also gained a Degree from Sydney College of the Arts. He was mentored by the artists and sculptors Michael Snape and MichaelBuzacott and many other well-known Australian artists. He ran a highly successful architectural modelmaking business which is credited with helping Australia win the 2000 Olympic bid. Some of these models are now exhibited in Sydney’s Power House Museum and the Maritime Museum. His artwork is highly symbolic, utilizing strong graphic motives, illustrating visually the narrative that he seeks to invoke with his poetry. AMELIA WOOD wrote her first poem at the age of six and she’s been hooked on writing ever since. A native of Detroit, Michigan, she has lived in 8 states and traveled extensively around the world. She currently studies English Literature and Creative Writing at New York University, pursuing her lifelong dream of writing. SHARISSE NAOMI ZEROONIAN is an author and playwright from the Boston area. Her previous publications include stage play One Plus One Is Two (Amazon CreateSpace, October 2014), children’s book Francie’s Brother (Amazon CreateSpace, May 2015), and short story “The Mouse in the Bread” (eFiction Magazine, May 2016). Zeroonian is currently working on a collection of short stories and poems about Armenian life in New England. She is a junior at Boston University, where she is majoring in Film/Television. 94

MINETTA REVIEW EDITORS-IN-CHIEF ART EDITOR POETRY EDITOR

Annesha Sengupta Emma Thomas Felix Ho Yuen Chan Ahmed Sherif

PROSE EDITOR

David Sobalvarro

ART ASSISTANT

Chandler Wald Stephanie Wang

POETRY ASSISTANTS

PROSE ASSISTANTS

TREASURER COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR EVENTS COORDINATOR

Richa Lagu Alicia Parker Weston Richey Mary Hess Sofiya Joseph Jaclyn Shultz Coty Novak Sarah Colvin Christine Wang

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Amanda Braitman Sebastian Lopez Calvo Chelsea Cheng Kaity Gee Elad Mashiach Agne Numaviciute Omolara Omotosho Ellora Rakesh Ernest Tija

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Sarah Anne McGough

Minetta Review, established in 1974, is a literary and arts publication managed by undergraduate students at New York University. Please visit our website for submissions guidelines. Book design and layout by Emma Thomas. Copy edited by David Sobalvarro, Ahmed Sherif, Richa Lagu, Alicia Parker, Weston Richey, Mary Hess, Sofiya Joseph, Jaclyn Shultz. Proofread by Emma Thomas, Annesha Sengupta, Jaclyn Shultz, Ahmed Sherif, and Kevin Beerman. Minetta Review logo created by Carol Ourivio. All rights revert to the contributor, whose authorization is required for reprints. ISSN 1065-9196 A special thank you to Sarah Anne McGough and the Student Activities Board at New York University, for their continued support of Minetta and its dedicated editorial board. An enormous thanks to Randy Reeves at Art Communication Systems, Inc. for printing a beautiful issue.

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